Happy Children’s Day to all Malaysian children. This time, we have a prayer for you. For you to always be safe and protected from the vape grip. Let us talk about this for a short while, shall we?
Have you heard on social media of girls being gang raped after being offered to puff a kind of vape? Have you heard of a student who fell off at school after being dizzy from puffing vape? Have you seen your friend’s eyes turning bloodshot, and she is unable to respond sensibly to you or your teachers at school because she has just indulged in vaping? These are just a few stories. Hundreds more stories, if not thousands, are swept under the carpet.
Do not be fooled by the false claims that it has vitamins. Those are all marketing tactics. Vendors sell vapes in various eye-catching designs, colours, and shapes. These lure children and teens into buying their products, not so much for mature adults. Please understand that the industry needs to replace adult and older smokers with a new generation of smokers; hence, they target children and teenagers. They need their market and industry to keep on generating money; they do not care about the health of their users because nothing in vape content is healthy.
Did you know vaping can ruin your smile? Yes, because it can cause periodontitis (red, bleeding and swollen gums) that may lead to tooth loss. Your tooth will be discoloured too (it changes colour to yellowish/ brownish), delays healing and increases the risk of oral cancer (any cancer related to the mouth such as tongue or throat cancer).
Vape is unsafe, as much as smoking is dangerous. Nicotine has been found in more than 95% of the vape products declared as nicotine-free, which shows how irresponsible the manufacturers are. Just imagine, would anyone repeat buying a vape product if there is no addictive substance in it? Nicotine can cause diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and depression, problems concentrating, memory problems, reduced fertility and many more. These effects are more profound among children and teenagers, as their bodies are still developing.
Vegetable glycerine (VG) and propylene glycol (PG), the main substances in vape juice, can harm oral health and damage the lungs, making breathing difficult. Emerging evidence shows an association between VG/PG and the development of tumour and its spread (we call it metastasis) to other organs.
It contains heavy metals like cadmium (it is found in batteries). Cadmium is carcinogenic, which means it can damage your cells, leading to cancer. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cadmium has toxic effects on the kidneys, lungs, and skeletal systems. There is more to this. Other toxic heavy metals, such as chromium, arsenic, lead, and many more, are dangerous to human health and the environment.
Illicit drugs such as ketamine, methamphetamine and THC can easily be inserted into vape juice by anyone, made worse by the poor regulation of vape in Malaysia. In Malaysia, there are many case studies published on magic mushrooms. These are not ordinary mushrooms; they contain an active substance called psilocybin. In the first 45 minutes, a person may have excessive yawning and nausea. Later, the user will start feeling drowsy or relaxed. At a higher dose, the user will start having palpitations (heart beating too fast), feeling nervous and anxious to the extent of psychosis and death.
The vapour released into the air is proven from scientific studies to contain the same heavy metals and nicotine as inhaled by vapers. Secondhand effects exist for vapes, and when you breathe in secondhand vapour, you risk your health.
Do you agree with your parents’, brother’s, or sister’s vaping habits? Shall we agree with our Sultan of Pahang to completely ban vaping and smoking in our country? Our immediate neighbours, Brunei, Thailand, and Singapore, have banned vaping. Even Maldives, a smaller country than us, will prohibit the manufacturing, sale, advertising and possession of vapes beginning 15 December 2024. If these countries can ban them, we can ban them, too. It is just a matter of mind over matters before more children get killed from vaping.
Let us ban vape before it kills your child, even when you think your child might not be the victim. Prevention is always better than cure. Let us save our children because we can.
Prof. Dr Nur Amani Ahmad Tajuddin is a Family Medicine Specialist and Fellow in Tobacco Control at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya.
